Beating Poverty INTRODUCTION A PRACTICAL RESOURCE FOR THOSE CURRENTLY WITHOUT MONEY 1. HOW NOT TO BE POOR, IN TWO LESSONS. 2. FOUR RULES TO LIVE BY 3. YOUR EDUCATION 4. A PERSONAL STORY 5. UNDERSTANDING MONEY 6. GETTING GROUNDED, AND STAYING THAT WAY INTRODUCTION A PRACTICAL RESOURCE FOR THOSE CURRENTLY WITHOUT MONEY I decided to write this book when I was hired to write a website on debt reduction. I went looking for new information about how to deal with not having enough money to live on but I simply couldn’t find any. It turns out that financial advice isn’t written for the truly poor; it’s written for the middle-class; people with jobs and bank accounts. In short, for people who don’t really need it. After doing a little research, I realized that every piece of financial advice I had ever read was pure, absolute garbage. The "money management" strategies put out there by financial advisors make some huge assumptions about how much money the reader has, and I know that for myself, for years and years, I wanted to cry every time I read the words, "pay yourself first". If I paid myself first, I wouldn’t be able to pay the electric bill. There were literally years when I couldn’t afford a decent meal, a pair of shoes that fit, or a new book. There were years when I was cold and even hungry. And I was never even "poor". Not living-in-the-tenement poor, anyway: not sleeping-on-the-streets poor. I came from a middle class background, but when I left home in the high-unemployment Reagan years, my standard of living dropped drastically. I was chronically impoverished, and sometimes I felt desperate. It’s so hard to be poor, and tens of millions of Americans deal with that reality every day. What's unreal is the debt consolidation advice given out free, gratis and at no charge by banks, mortgage lenders, financial advisors and credit counseling agencies. "Pay yourself first! Cut up your credit cards! Never make just the minimum payment!" What these (banks) and well-meaning do- gooders (credit counselors) don't tell you, is that the financial rules were made by banks, specifically to keep poor people from getting some of the billions of dollars that grow daily in the accounts of the rich. What is “Poor”? Chances are, if you’re poor, you know it: you don’t need to ask questions! But there are official levels of “poverty”, and they can affect the sort of services you receive. According to the U.S. government’s Department of Health and Human Services, a single person who makes less than $10,890 a year is poor. The limit is a little higher in Alaska and Hawaii, and the department doesn’t define poverty for the U.S.’ possessions and territories, like Puerto Rico. Right away, the definition of poverty gets hazy, as some agencies consider the limit to be before-tax (gross) income and some use after tax (net) income as the limit. If you are considered poor by the government, you are eligible for various government funded programs. Ideally, you’ll find your way out of poverty and not have to rely for long on such programs, because they have a way of drying up during political changes! The following link will take you to a website where you can find out about programs in all areas—from food to education, health and housing. http://www.govbenefits.gov/govbenefits_en.portal If you’re working but underemployed, or if you’re receiving child support from an ex-spouse, you may find that you are denied social benefits because you make “too much money” to be considered officially poor. In this case, a smart social worker or accountant can help you figure out what you need to do to keep working and also get some benefits. Sometimes you can consult for free with housing, employment or tax experts who can help you make decisions about saving or hiding your money in order to have more of it at the end of the year. It’s a tricky business, and not on I can take on in this book, but if you can find the right person to help you, you may be able to create an income that makes sense. Contrary to what some rich people may believe, there are very few ways to “work the system” in order to get rich. If you do find ways to “work the system” by completing forms, keeping track of finances and expenses and showing up for things on time, you may just be able to make the system work enough so you can live indoors and eat people food. Not a bad way to spend your time, if you ask me! Let’s have a momentary reality check: if you’re trying to live indoors in most cities and making $11,000 a year, you’re not “officially” impoverished, but realistically, you are. If you can’t afford the basics (food, housing, medical care and utilities for heating, cooling and water), you are living in poverty, no matter whether the government acknowledges it or not. 011 HHS Poverty Guidelines Persons in Family 48 Contiguous States and D.C. Alaska Hawaii 1 $10,890 $13,600 $12,540 2 14,710 18,380 16,930 3 18,530 23,160 21,320 4 22,350 27,940 25,710 5 26,170 32,720 30,100 6 29,990 37,500 34,490 7 33,810 42,280 38,880 8 37,630 47,060 43,270 For each additional person, add 3,820 4,780 4,390 SOURCE: Federal Register, Vol. 76, No. 13, January 20, 2011, pp. 3637-3638 CHAPTER ONE HOW NOT TO BE POOR, IN TWO LESSONS The toughest thing about not being poor happens to be if you start off poor. More than 25% of the children in this country are born into poverty, and the problems that come along with being poor start even before birth. Some moms-to-be can't afford prenatal care, so babies may be more likely to be born with physical problems that might have been prevented if this country, as other civilized nations, provided decent health care to its citizens free of charge. Lack of prenatal care may also mean great big hospital bills after the birth, when mother and child are under the care of medical staff and at the mercy of the hospital billing department. When you've just gone a few thousand dollars into debt after having a child, even months of saving on a minimum-wage job will come to nothing long before the bills are paid. So, the best way to not be poor is to be born to people with money. Obviously, this is beyond our control. But there are ways to stop poverty from happening to you, just as there are ways to avoid catching a cold, and I want to cover them in this book. It’s a multi-prong education, though, because you need ideas that affect your attitudes and decisions making, your belief systems, your behaviors and your planning. It’s not a single thing: it’s a combination of emotions, thoughts and actions that will eventually remove poverty from your life. Lesson Number One: It's Not Your Fault This is sort of a round-about way of telling the first truth about poverty. If you are poor, it's really and truly not your fault. The economic system is set up to keep most people from achieving economic security, and part of the system relies on the fact that a large and impoverished class will provide service to a smaller and moneyed class. No one has to tell you that when you're poor, there are many more boundaries. It's harder to do well in school when you haven't had a decent breakfast or when you can't buy the books. Or when your school is so badly run that the best you can hope for is getting through the day without getting shot in the hallways. It's tough to get a decent job when you didn't finish school or when you don't have a decent interview outfit. It's nearly impossible to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when your soles are worn through. Our history, in fact, the history of the world has perpetuated the idea that poor people somehow deserve their poverty, but that's because the history, philosophy, newspapers and TV shows are put out by people with money. It's one of the psychological defenses of the rich to believe that people who are poor deserve to be poor: they're less moral, less intelligent, less deserving of good things, sometimes even of adequate things. The reason rich people maintain this fiction in the face of reality is that if poor people deserve their poverty, then rich people don't have to feel they must do something to alleviate that poverty. The feeling of entitlement means they get to keep their money, which is how rich people stay rich. A couple of hundred years ago, poor people were sent to prison if they couldn't pay their debts. Prison was a lot worse then, too, since there weren't laws about giving prisoners food or exercise. Many people died in debtors’ prison. These days, debtor's prison with modern prison standards of food, cleanliness, exercise and clothing would be a relief to the truly poor, but in the way of the world, now that prison has something to offer, the laws have changed to let the truly poor starve in the street. Having said that poverty isn't your fault, I'm going to throw in something that looks like a contradiction. If you're poor, it's not your fault. But you don't have to let being poor make you stay poor. You do have some control over the situation. It's not easy and not especially pleasant, but you can do something about it. And you will. Lesson Number Two: You Can Change Your "Fate" The American Dream has always been thus: a poor but bright student studies very hard, works after school for twenty years, becomes a doctor or a lawyer, and gets rich. After that, it's all easy: vacations in Hawaii, a beautiful mate, a great house, a nice car. Some people manage to make this dream happen, but it's not a sure-fire thing because life has a nasty habit of getting in the way. How can you study hard while you're working every night to pay for your books? How can you stay awake in class when you haven't even had breakfast? And how many need-based scholarships are out there for students who do well, but who can't get the straight A's because they just don't have the time to study in order to ace the test? Sure, there are scholarships and fellowships out there, but you would be surprised to see how few of them are based on the economic need of the student. Scholarships have a truly American way of enriching the lives of students whose parents pay their tuition so they don’t have to work a couple of part time jobs to pay for their room and board. Most poor students won't become doctors or lawyers: they just don't have the time. But that doesn't mean you can't succeed. You can work your way out of poverty, even grinding poverty, and you don't have to figure in ten years of medical school to do it. Immigrants have always told the story of working terribly hard so their children can "have a better life than I did". But you don't have to trudge your days away in poverty just hoping for the day your child makes it out. There are lots of ways of stopping poverty right now, in your lifetime, so that when your kids grow up, you have still lived your life the way you wanted to. The statistics about poverty are depressing. Poor people tend to stay poor, just as rich people tend to stay rich. But it's not because poor people are lazy (far from it) or rich people are so industrious (they're not). It's because of inertia: things tend to stay the way they are. Poor kids go to crummy, underfunded schools where they can't get a good education because they're busy just staying alive. Crummy schools mean never making it into college. Poor kids leave home without breakfast, eat a cheap, junk-food lunch, and maybe come home to an empty house because Mom and Dad are out trying to make some sort of living. Poor kids, when they live in houses, live in houses that are colder in winter and hotter in summer, and their clothes may not be enough to keep them comfortable, so they get sick more often. In a country that doesn't even provide basic health care to its people, people who can't afford hefty medical fees may not get the care or medicine they need when they need it most. And your grandmother is right: if you don't have your health, you don't have anything. It's a process of being stuck, and everything around you conspiring to keep you stuck. But when it comes to poverty, things stay the way they are because people don't know their options. When people reject the lies they've heard all their lives and start looking for a way that really works, they find their way out of poverty. They really, truly do. CHAPTER TWO FOUR RULES TO LIVE BY We've already covered the stupidity of the advice to "pay yourself first" when you can't even make the rent. When you're working a minimum wage job, you aren't going to be putting ten percent of your hourly pay into a nice, solid bank account: the bank usually has a minimum savings account requirement of a hundred bucks. You're probably going to spend that 65 cents an hour on something like food. And that's the way it should be. There are two main things we need before we need anything else. Food and shelter. These are the two things that must be provided for before anything else. One of my night jobs during school was at a crisis nursery, a place where people brought their kids when they thought the children were at risk of being harmed. Mothers who needed a serious break, women hiding from abusive partners, parents who were in the midst of a family crisis, addicts who needed to ditch the baby for awhile and wanted to know the baby would be safe. They brought their kids to the nursery at all hours of the day or night and we took care of them until their parents picked them up hours, or days later. One of the parents who used our nursery every day for several months was a father of a three month old baby. The mom was a junkie and out of the picture: the baby was adorable; the dad was clean and sober but homeless. Every day, he wheeled the stroller to the nursery and left his son with us while he went job-hunting. Every evening, he picked the baby up and took him back to the homeless shelter. Pride wasn't an issue: he was doing what he knew was best for his child. He was keeping him safe and warm and fed and sheltered. And eventually, the man got a job and took his baby home for good. When you have kids, their first needs are food and shelter and love. Your love means you're going to find a way to feed them and get them a safe place to live. When you're on your own, you should be thinking about yourself the same way. Until you are eating your three squares and living indoors, paying off loans, buying a car or even getting new jeans are out of the question. So Real-Life Rule Number One for Beating Poverty is: Rule #1: Feed Yourself First And I don't mean on McDonalds or KFC or Burger King, because that stuff isn't food—it's non- food. Anti-food. It's cheap and easy to get, which is why poor people eat it. Ever wonder why the fast food places congregate in the poor parts of town? They're counting on people without much money to stop in for a cheap bite to eat. But that mass-produced processed food-like substance doesn't fill you up for long, and in fact, it leaves you hungrier than when you started. There’s little in it that’s actually nourishing for your body. It's full of additives and preservatives and salt, sugar and fat. Poor people tend to eat lots more fast food: they also tend to suffer more diabetes, obesity, heart disease and cancer. It's not an accident: in fact, some people say it's a conspiracy. So forget the Happy Meal and truly feed yourself what your body needs. If you have two dollars, buy a big can of beans and a pound of rice. Preferably brown rice, which is the whole grain, and healthier for you. In ancient China, when people became wealthy, they switched to white rice, which was thought more refined. Peasants still ate brown rice, and were consequently healthier than their rich neighbors. White rice has had the fiber and vitamins that occur in the outer fiber coat polished off: what's left is a starch with little nutritional value. Brown rice fills you up better, gives you more nutrition than white rice, and, mixed with beans, creates a protein that builds muscle and sticks to your ribs. A pound of dry rice makes two pounds once it's cooked, so you'll have three or four meals out of it. If you have three dollars, buy some broccoli too. It's not sexy, this food, but it's healthy. It will fill you up and keep you healthy. It will feed you several times, while that Happy Meal will be gone in ten minutes. Two-fifty will buy you a dozen eggs –eighteen in some places. You can buy a cup of almonds at a health food store for about $2.50, and they make a great mini-meal because they're loaded with protein and good fat, and they don't have any weird additives to mess with your body chemistry. The protein will keep you from getting hungry longer—in fact, a handful of almonds helped a lot of people stick to the Atkins diet and lose weight when they might otherwise have succumbed to sugar cravings and the Twinkie blood sugar rollercoaster that makes you even hungrier than when you started. Nuts cost more than candy bars, but they last longer and give you better value for your money. Plus, every time you eat something that’s good for you, you’re investing in your health. A lot of what goes wrong with us is directly related to diet, so if you have a good diet, you have greater potential for excellent health. In general, the less messed-with it is, the better food is for you. A Twinkie is made of air, sugar, fat and a slew of chemicals. An apple is fiber, vitamins, water and sweet, natural taste. Apples, carrots, celery, bananas—how can you go wrong with food like that? Sure, we crave junk food, but it doesn't do right by us. You buy a Twinkie for 75 cents and eat it in two minutes, tops. For the same amount of money, you can buy two apples, or ¾ of a pound of rice (which will cook up into 1.5 pounds), or a pint of milk. Buy real food and not only will you be getting more bang for your buck financially, but you'll be feeding yourself quality food. You know what Madonna eats? What her expensive, highly trained chef prepares for her on a near-daily basis? Fish. Just a little broiled fish and steamed veggies. Madonna, after years of dieting, with the costliest ingredients at her fingertips, who can have anything she wants, more often than not, eats fish. If you live near the ocean or if your supermarket has a decent frozen food section, a fish fillet makes a fine meal of high protein, low fat, filling, nutritious food. If you live in a place where "fresh fish" means "maybe you won't get food poisoning if you eat it immediately", you can resort to canned tuna. Yes, it has mercury in it: most fish does these days. We're all still eating it, and it's tasty and filling: high protein, low fat. If you tend to be too skinny, get the oil-packed tuna: if you tend towards being chubby, get the water-pack. Prepared foods cost more per ounce than fresh ones. Someone has to pay for the chemicals, the additives and the packaging! And that someone shouldn't be you! Raw foods, whole grains and fresh veggies and fruits are real food. The simpler the food you buy, the better you'll be eating. It may take some more prep time, that's true. But then, if you can boil water you can cook rice and veggies. Notice that I’m not talking about organic foods here. It’s true that most of the foods I mentioned can be found in bulk at your local health food store. It’s true that organic food is better for us all. But it still costs 2-4 times as much as non-organic food, and when you’re hurting for money, cutting down on your food intake to eat organic doesn’t make sense. If you have dirt and seeds and can grow a garden, organic food makes perfect sense, since you’re also not spending money on chemicals. But if I have to choose between two pounds of non-organic apples and a half pound of organic ones, I’ll probably take my chances and eat more apples. Rule #2: Get a Mentor This may sound absolutely crazy, but there’s a reason for putting “Get a Mentor” right after “feed yourself first”. Poverty is a great, big hole, and it takes a lot of energy and time to scramble out of it. Imagine standing in a hole that comes up to your shoulders, your neck. Would you rather try to work your way out on your own, or would you like someone to lower a rope or a ladder down to you? Unless you really like to do things the hard way, you’re going to want someone to lend you a hand. In a way, this book is a mentor, but it cannot take the place of a living, breathing person who cares about what happens to you and wants to help. There is no substitute for someone who cares. You may believe that there’s no one on this our Earth who will give you a hand. You’ve probably run into all kinds of people who have told you “no”, either sadly because they can’t be of help or coldly because they’re thinking, “I’ve got mine, and you aren’t getting any of it”. You’re going to keep running into those people—they’re everywhere, and with more and more people facing poverty, you’re going to find a feeling of lack everywhere you turn. But, and this is a big but, there are still people out there who can be of help and who want to help. People need to help each other in order to make their lives meaningful: there’s no better way, in fact to put meaning into your life than by helping someone else. Your task is to find the person who can help you. One of the worst things about being poor is the way you’re forced to distrust people. Part of it is common sense: if you leave your wallet beside your cot in the shelter, there’s a good chance that someone whose condition has overwhelmed his or her ethical ideas will relieve you of it. But let’s not lose perspective: if you leave your wallet in a nice, middle class grocery store, chances are that some nice, middle class person will consider it a windfall and take it home. There are dishonest people at all levels of society. But there are also honest people, kind people—don’t forget that. When you forget it, you leave yourself vulnerable to distrust and despair in your fellow man and woman. You need a mentor not only because right now you’re unaware of your options: you need encouragement at least as much as you do information. Poverty is grinding: it wears you down. But with the friendship and goodwill of others, you’ll find it easier to fight and win your battles. You’ll gain energy by being with people who believe in you and in what’s right. When you have energy and optimism, you can keep plugging away at something that would defeat other people. Most of overcoming poverty involves being persistent, but many impoverished people can’t persist because they are tired and discouraged. To get practical, where will you find a mentor, someone who will help you out of the struggle against poverty? Look for someone who is kind and who has information. That’s all you need: someone who give you the information you need and who’ll be supportive and encouraging as well. Look for your mentor at social service agencies, church related organizations, homeless shelters, food banks, drug and alcohol centers and anywhere else people congregate to help each other. You’re not looking for cash donations: just someone who can help you get access to the information you need. You may find that your mentor has practically no money at all, but is more than willing to share ideas and support with you. There are many people who live in near poverty in order to be close to the people they want to help. Social workers often have ideals that send them into the slums to help people. Your mentor may not be able to get you actual cash in hand, but if you find someone who’s willing to fill out forms, hunt down employment or find you a sandwich at a crucial time, you’ve found someone important. Don’t let distrust stop you from getting help. If you suffer from a mental illness, this is especially hard, because you may have learned through experience that many people cannot be trusted. But if you find someone who seems willing to help get you a place to live, something to eat and something that supports you in your life, take that outreached hand. Rule #3: Find a Safe Place to Live Now we're venturing into tricky territory. How do you get a safe, decent house when you don't have enough money for a deposit, much less rent and forget about a down payment and a mortgage! You may be on the street: homelessness is one of the worst crimes perpetrated on the American poor in the history of the country. Most homeless people are in the city, and the shelters in the city are usually full. And rents are higher in the city, so even with roommates, it's hard to get a place, if not impossible. But living indoors is a major priority: it's right up there with feeding yourself. When you don't have a home, it's hard to effectively do anything else. You don't have a place for your clothes or stuff; there's nowhere to bathe when you want; you can't even fill out a resume because you have no address or phone to give the employer! So, before you do anything else, you must get a home, even if it's a temporary one. What are your options? Shelters If you're on the street, go to any shelter and if it's full, get a list of every shelter they know of. Ask if you can get a ride to an open shelter. A lot of people are on the streets because they are ashamed or afraid of the do-gooders who staff the shelters. (Thousands of people with mental illness were thrown out of hospitals in the Reagan years, and the various Bush's have seen no reason to right that wrong. One aspect of having a mental illness is in not being able to trust others, even when they are trustworthy. Don’t let a habit of distrust keep you homeless.) If you have a mental illness, it's even harder to trust that people will help you, but you stand a better chance with someone who works at a shelter than you will with just about anyone else. People go to work for the homeless because they want to help—they’re dying to help! Maybe they have a family member who went on the streets and disappeared, or maybe they’re just aware that until we all pitch in and help, homelessness is still going to be an issue. If someone wants to help you, don’t ask why, just say thanks and help them help you. If you’re in a crowded place, the volunteers or agency people may be burnt out, and it may seem like no on can help, but hang in there. Give it a serious try, and if it doesn't work, keep looking: somewhere out there is the person with the information and willingness to help you. Find that person and help him or her become a better person still by helping you. Make a commitment to getting off the street. Sit down with a volunteer and a phone and go through the list of shelters until you find one with a place for you. Forget about all that "I'm never going to a shelter" crap: that's what they're there for. And most shelters have other helpful services that can help you get food and maybe even a more permanent place to live. It's a hassle getting off the streets, but you have to do it. You just have to. And it’s possible, it really is! So, find a willing shelter worker and indicate your very strong feelings that you are meant to have an indoor home. Search all your local options, and if every place is filled, get the shelter folks to call other shelters outside the county until there's a place found for you. If you have to leave the city, so much the better: it's a lot easier to be poor when you don't live in the city. A shelter isn’t failure and it isn’t forever: it’s a first step. Some people move from shelters into group homes or subsidized apartments, because once you get into the system and have social agency people working for you, you can get closer and closer to your goal. Once you have a place to live, finding work becomes infinitely easier. Get off the street. Get into a shelter and get some help and then start working on a plan for a permanent place to live. You deserve to live indoors! Stay with Friends When I moved to the Bay Area in the late '90s, it made me sick to see the fully employed dot- commers who made it onto TV news because they were "homeless" and sleeping in their $60,000 cars. Yes, the housing situation was tight: there were virtually no apartments for rent and the few that did open up had rents jacked up so high by greedy landlords, that most people couldn't afford them. I wanted to vomit at the "new homelessness"; where people who made more money in a year than most people saw in five were finding it impossible to get housing. It wasn't too rough for most of them: they moved into the areas north of San Francisco and commuted. Big deal. What surprised me was that someone would go on TV and basically admit that the people they worked with, the people they met in bars, the people they dated, and all of their friends, wouldn't spare a corner of a room for them to sleep in. Wouldn't let them have the couch for a couple of months. When I was sixteen, I wanted more than anything in the world to get away from my family. It wasn't an especially horrible family, but they made me miserable and I needed to escape. A solution presented itself when my friend Linda, who was a year older than I was, invited me to stay at her apartment with her and her roommate, who had recently had a baby. Linda was working at a lumber mill and saving money to go to college; her roommate was just returning to get her GED since the birth of her baby had cut off her last year of high school. I went to live in their two bedroom apartment, sharing the rent. I think my share was $80 a month, which I paid from the money I made waitressing after school. I slept on the couch in the living room. In the morning, Linda was up first, for her mill job. She got up at something like 5:30. Around 7:00, the new mom got up, fed the baby and then left him cuddled up with me on the couch while she showered and got ready for school. There are fewer things more delightful than waking up with a baby someone else has already washed, diapered and fed; a baby who just wants to coo and chuckle and be held. Just about the time they left, I could get up and get ready to start my day. It was a long time ago, and it only lasted a couple or three months, (I ran out of money) but that may have been one of the happiest times of my life. The comradeship of two other girls, the excitement of making my own way, and the safety of having a place to go and people to go to made for an ideal transition from my parent's home to the outside world. I think that people forget that staying with friends is an option when times get tough. Maybe we think that being grown up means being "independent", and that it's only okay to live with other people if they have a free guest room and extra towels. Truth is, none of that stuff matters: you can make a pallet on the floor, crash on the couch—hang up a hammock, for crying out loud! The point is this: sometimes we say no to things that would be good for us because something inside says that we don't deserve good things, or we don't want to be indebted to someone for [...]... opportunity to compare the Navy base at Pearl Harbor with Hickam Air Force Base, both on the island of Oahu, in Hawaii The Air Force won hands down for services, aesthetics and general atmosphere, not to mention a lovely beach and cottage for rent at low rates to military personnel on holiday The uniforms are more attractive, basic training isn’t as horrifying and, although advancement is slower, the overall... more years it takes to become a doctor and the months it takes to be a realtor, is the legal profession Law school doesn't take as long as med school, and you can make as much money as a doctor without having to put your hands in other people's body cavities You have to go to law school, and they can be tough to get into, but if that's what you really want to do, there's no other way to become a lawyer,... established credentials You can't set yourself up as a medical doctor without having gone to med school and then doing internships and residency and then passing the board examinations It takes at least eight years to become a doctor On the other hand, if you want to be a realtor, you can study for the test just by buying the materials There are courses and seminars to take, and you do have to pass... bank The reason many Americans don’t borrow or lend money to each other is a strange sort of national pride There’s a weird ethos in American that says it’s better to suffer and starve than to ask for help, even from someone who can and will give it to you It’s a bizarre and destructive rule that has led to the rise of many financial institutions, because Americans will go to a professional bank before... military is that if you can get in and stay in and if the lifestyle doesn’t bother you, you can achieve a moderate standard of living At the very least, you’ll have housing in a barracks and free food, and that’s not something to sneeze at If you manage to avoid bloodshed and war, it’s possible to make a very nice career in the military The Air Force has the highest standard of living I once had the... one is that you should marry for love and love alone The other, a line from the old movie “How to Marry a Millionaire” is that it’s as easy to love a rich man as a poor one Or a rich woman, for that matter And there are people who have plenty of money, and would love to have someone to come home to at night The fact is, when we fall in love, we rarely take into account the other person’s accounts—... pass the test and pay some fees for a license, but you certainly don't have to get a degree to become a realtor (In England, you don't even have to pass a test: you can just wake up and decide "Today I'm going to become a realtor" Then you can visit your local sign maker, put a sign up by your door and start visiting your neighbors to see who wants to sell and who wants to buy!) Someplace between the... interest rates or loans they can’t pay back Payday Loans If you think it’s revolting that banks use millions from their advertising funds to convince people to take out loans they can’t pay off, you’ll also understand why payday loan companies are evil It’s evil perhaps on a smaller individual scale, but it’s still wrong, and some states are paying attention to payday loan (also called check cashing services)... You’ll always find payday loan places in the poor parts of towns, and you’ll also find them around military bases because young soldiers and sailors often live from paycheck to paycheck and don’t bother to get bank accounts So, they’re providing a service to people, cashing their paychecks on the spot, for a fee Here’s the bad part It’s the fee It’s not unusual for a payday loan company to cash your paycheck... bring untold riches to your door, but as a day-by-day way of making decisions and managing your feelings about poverty and what it means to be rich in the ways that really count 1 Care for your health: it’s the most important thing you have It’s a hard thing to grasp, because we take health for granted until it disappears But when you’re sick or hurt, there’s nothing more important than getting back to . rich. After that, it's all easy: vacations in Hawaii, a beautiful mate, a great house, a nice car. Some people manage to make this dream happen, but it's not a sure-fire thing because. Linda, who was a year older than I was, invited me to stay at her apartment with her and her roommate, who had recently had a baby. Linda was working at a lumber mill and saving money to go to. can't afford to pay in cash. In this case, you'll still need a job that provides you with some actual money, but at least you'll have a ready-made home and an address to put on applications.